A geeky girl's guide to fitness, beauty, fashion, and all things bacon.

Easy Orange and Almond Salad

So typically, when I make a salad, it’s not off of a recipe. I mean- almost every salad I make is a garbage salad- just a bunch of minced veggies and a small amount of greens tossed with a homemade vinaigrette.

Well- according to the boyfran, that’s not a salad- he want’s more lettuce. So I bought some . . . DA NUH NUH. . . ICEBERG LETTUCE. WHICH- I never buy because compared to Kale and Spinach, has NO nutritional value. However, I figured an iceberg salad is better than a coney dog topped with a slice of pizza. (Which is something that sounds good to me and probably something he would both bask and bathe in).

Looking through the pantry and fridge, trying to figure out what I had that I could make an iceberg salad with, I remembered a recipe that a work friend had give to me when I was still in high school.( I was a pretty rad 17 year old and worked at a scrap booking store with lots of part-timer Moms, and 60 year old women. ) Just so happens one of these super-scrappin’-grannies gave me this recipe and I ate it religiously for 873 days in row. Can you say, obsessed? It was so simple and addicting. Salty, sweet and crunchy. I hadn’t made this salad in about 5 years, so naturally I ate an entire bowl full tonight. Not like a soup bowl- like the largest size mixing bowl I own.

STATUS: currently washing it down with a nice bottle of cab. #sorryimnotsorry

So- I know these ingredients aren’t the healthiest- granted there’s no bacon, croutons or cheese, but the sodium from the olives isn’t really considered great for you. PLUS, I’m a bit of a salt-whore sooooo there’s that. So pretty much this salad has hardly any nutritional value, but if you eat a gargantuan mixing bowl of it (raising my hand) it’ll fill ya up and make you glad you didn’t eat an entire pizza. Lesser of two evils. YUMMMMM. Recipe is as follows:

1/2 head of shredded lettuce

1 can Mandarin oranges (get the kind with no added sugar or corn syrup!)

1/3 c chopped almonds, or sliced almonds

3 tbsp unsweetened coconut (that was my little add in that made it fancy- you already know. . .)

2 tbsp Cha Cha Chia!!!! seeds

sliced white onion. I just threw some in. (I never measure and these are all approximations- again, I’m not the most organized person).